A reflection of the effects of highways--and their hugely subsidized trucks--upon railroads, and of the incompetence of the Southern Pacific. The trucks took much rail freight on the coast, the SP--partly through government rules & inertia--failed to meet the competition; many lines were closed, most of the rest were sold to small, hungry, competent firms. This is the story. It is well told in a style familiar to rail fans: lists of stations, engine rosters, control blocks. Abundant photos, a few in color. Current through the visit of the X2000 in mid-1993. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
A detailed history of one of J.J. Hill's enterprises--the line into the lucrative Willamette Valley (Portland and points south) where he could duke it out with Harriman's Southern Pacific. Many photos and charts. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Two veteran railroaders begin their history with a review of the coming of railroad service to the Pacific Northwest, but quickly move into details of the construction, operation and economic impact of the former Great Northern Railway's "W-O (Wenatchee-Oroville) branch line, a line that became one of its highest revenue branches. Unlike many books on railroading, this book does not consist only of photos of trains and railroad station buildings. Instead, it is a serious study of what was required to support the movement of thousands of cars of apples, lumber, grain and minerals to market centers to the east. Readers will be impressed by the authors' focus on the strong ties the railroad company developed with the parties who had a stake in building the economy on this part of the GN's system. -- Back cover.
"Hoptopia argues that the current revolution in craft beer is the product of a complex global history that converged in the hop fields of Oregon's Willamette Valley. What spawned from an ideal environment and the ability of regional farmers to grow the crop rapidly transformed into something far greater because Oregon farmers depended on the importation of rootstock, knowledge, technology, and goods not only from Europe and the Eastern United States but also from Asia, Latin America, and Australasia. They also relied upon a seasonal labor supply of people from all of these areas as a supplement to local Euroamerican and indigenous communities to harvest their crops. In turn, Oregon hop farmers reciprocated in exchanges of plants and ideas with growers and scientists around the world, and, of course, sent their cured hops into the global marketplace. These global exchanges occurred not only during Oregon's golden era of hop growing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but through to the present in the midst of the craft beer revival. The title of this book, Hoptopia, is a nod to Portland's title of Beervana and the Willamette Valley's claim as an agricultural Eden from the mid-nineteenth century onward. But the story is fundamentally about how seemingly niche agricultural regions do not exist and have never existed independently of the flow of people, ideas, goods, and biology from other parts of the world. To define Hoptopia is to define the Willamette Valley's hop and beer industries as the culmination of all of this local and global history. With the hop itself as a central character, this book aims to connect twenty-first century consumers to agricultural lands and histories that have been forgotten in an era of industrial food production"--Provided by publisher.
During the 1980s, three major events--a Frisco Railroad merger, leadership changes, and deregulation--improved Burlington Northern's railway earnings and radically transformed corporate objectives, standards, work methods, and technology. This volume explores initiatives and strategies Burlington Northern employed to reach the era's ambitious goals, as well as the cost of such profound change.
"Seattle residents were bitterly disappointed in 1873 when the Northern Pacific selected rival Tacoma as the future Puget Sound terminus for Washington Territory's first transcontinental railroad. This book depicts the growth of railways across the Puget Sound region, including Tacoma's frantic quest for a saltwater terminal of their own, descriptions of individual lines, and the colorful personalities and urban aspirations that eventually brought Seattle to the forefront of Washington commerce"--Provided by publisher.
"This book recounts John Langlot’s career and experiences during the tumultuous period of railroad history between 1960 and 2005. John hired out on the Great Northern at Hillyard in July of 1960, was forced to the W-O in 1961, and worked the line in the early 1960’s. The first chapter is about John’s life as a boy in Hillyard. The next eight chapters describe John’s work on the lines of the Great Northern Railway’s Spokane Division as it was from July 12, 1903 to February 1, 1956 and from July 1, 1967 to March 2, 1970, arranged on a geographic basis."-- page xv.
